Music composition

A whole lot of Mozart

Mozart!

Yesterday I got my Mozart Edition: Complete Works (170 CD Box Set)
in the mail, a nice box set containing all of Mozart’s work (not including his lost or incomplete works, for contrary to a popular myth, he did not completely compose entire pieces in his head and later write them out).  I’m really excited to have such a collection at my fingertips.  And since most of Mozart’s scores are also available for free at this website, studying his music will now be extremely convenient.  I have to admit, a part of me was expecting this box set to include poor recordings, thus allowing it to be the bargain it is, but the recordings are actually very good quality.  Avid classical music collectors might argue that there are certainly better albums out there with better performances, but such albums can cost $10 to $18 for a single CD, whereas with this box set, each CD is less than $1.  Awesome value!

They also have Bach Edition: Complete Works (155 CD Box Set) and Beethoven Edition: Complete Works (85CD Box Set) and such, and hopefully someday I’ll buy them too, but I had to start out with Mozart.

My first album progress

I also recently finished composing a new piece for my album called Voyage of the Dream Maker.  I uploaded a YouTube video featuring the piece here. It’s my Opus 50!  (By my opus counting at least.)  That brings my album to about 35 minutes of finished music so far (White Castle Waltz, On the Edge of a Dream, The Dragon King, Voyage of the Dream Maker, and an unfinished 15-minute piece), so I’ve got about 25 minutes of music left to compose… and I’ve got some more great melodies I look forward to working with.

The new CD Baby is now up and running, which looks, eh… like it wasn’t worth the trouble of changing (in my opinion).  But their new features might be convenient in the future.  Last I checked, however, their accounting database still isn’t up yet, which is annoying… not that I really need it very soon anyway, as I’m only selling one download…

By S P Hannifin, ago

CD Baby changes coming?

Still really enjoying my new laptop.  I recently finally got my music software installed, and have been working on a new piece, which I think is turning out really well.  It is great to be able to compose in high-def, 1920×1200 resolution.  Less scrolling!  And this laptop has 4 GB of RAM, which is great for loading up a bunch of virtual instruments.

Now on to some other news.  As you may know, I have my CD single, White Castle Waltz, for sale on CD Baby.  I’ve recently been notified by CD Baby that my music stinks and they will no longer sell it.  No, just kidding, actually they sent out an email about changes they plan on making to the site very soon.  Like, either tonight or tomorrow.  One of the new features they’re adding is “the ability to sell single-song downloads” with a “music uploader, so you don’t need to send in a CD for your download-only titles.” I’m a bit excited a bit these new features. I’m still working on my album and will definitely sell it as a CD when I have an hour’s worth of new material, but in the meantime I think I’ll soon be able to sell the songs as I finish them, instead of just sitting on them. (Right now I’ve got White Castle, which I’ve already made about $5 off selling the download, On the Edge of a Dream, which isn’t available anywhere, but at least it’s on YouTube, so I suppose one could rip it from there, and The Dragon King, which I don’t have anywhere yet.)

What I might be able to do is offer a discount on my album once it comes out to anybody who had downloaded the MP3s… otherwise it seems a bit silly to buy MP3s only to re-buy the music on a completed album.  Anyway, I’d have to work out the $$$ side of it, since CDs obviously cost money to manufacture…

And hopefully all this attempt at making some $$$ from my music won’t displease anyone too much, since I already give away so much for free… (though I do believe these tracks for my album are among the best I’ve ever composed… though I guess I’m always a bit biased towards my latest composition)

Ok, that’s all.  There is no more.

By S P Hannifin, ago

A melody experiment and stuff

A melody experiment

I posted this melody experiment yesterday.  It’s something I’ve been wanting to try for a while; I’ll be very interested in the results.  Basically, the experiment consists of creating a melody by people voting for the next note.  I simplified it as much as I could; the rhythm, time signature, key, starting note, etc., are already determined, accompanying harmony is not being considered, and there are only 15 choices spanning two octaves; no accidentals.  There could of course be many more choices, and I’ll definitely be interested in exploring them in the future, but for this first try I wanted to make it as simple and direct as possible.  Such simplification will, I hope, also get the final melody written much sooner!

I don’t know whether the final melody will be strange and random, very generic, or perhaps pretty good; I am eager to find out!  It will have to sound like something after all.  I think it will get much more interesting a few more notes or bars into the melody, when the first notes begin to actually influence our expectations of what note should come next.  Oh yes, then it will be very interesting I think.  In fact, I considered going ahead and writing the first couple measures just to get to that point right off the bat, but then decided against it.  After all, maybe the beginning will be interesting too?

So, if you get a chance to visit this page and vote, I’d really be interested in everyone’s choices!

Stuff – WolframAlpha

Somebody on a forum mentioned this website: WolframAlpha (and this impressive video about it, maybe better to watch this first).  I really encourage all geeks to check it out, it’s a lot of fun to play around with.  Here’s a graph comparing the popularity of different spellings of my name, Sean, Shaun, and Shawn.  WolframAlpha created it by me typing “sean shawn shaun“.  One can see the popularity in the name sort of exploded in the 1970’s, and seems to be slowly becoming unpopular again, but is still quite popular right now.  (By the way, “Sean” is the correct spelling, the other ways are wrong!)

It has a huge wealth of info, and is (of course being from Wolfram) especially good at math questions.  I typed in “What is the 5000000th prime number?” and it told me: 86028121.  Of course!  I typed in “What is the 5000000th digit of pi?” and it told me: computation timed out.  Of course!  I typed in “What is the answer to life, the universe, and everything?” and it told me: 42.  I typed in “What is the derivative of 6x^x^x?” and it gave me some long equation.  I typed in “1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 13, 19, 28, …” and it gave me a possible generating function for the sequence. I typed in “How old was Martin Gardner in 11/25/1985?” to find out Martin Gardner was 71 years old when I was born (and he’s still alive).

And all that’s just touching the surface.  So it’s fun to play around with.  Lots of stuff there, and it should improve with time.

By S P Hannifin, ago

Summer and time

It will soon be (or is today) a year since I’ve been out of school, completely free from formal education. It’s strange because time passes much more quickly when you’re not really waiting for summer to come. When I was in school, I was always thinking about future due dates, and I always had the next break or three-day weekend lingering in my mind, looking forward to it so I could sleep in. My mental schedule was always full; I was always anticipating something. Without all that schedule aniticipation, the days have really flown by. I once read somewhere than one reason time may seem to fly by as you get older is because you don’t experience new things as often, where as when you’re young, the days are often filled with new experiences. I think not anticipating anything, not consciously waiting for anything also makes time fly. I can vividly remember sitting there in a classroom listening to a boring teacher blather on and on and looking at the clock, realizing school wouldn’t be over for another three or six hours, and just suffering. Watching the clock makes it tick very slowly. Better to spend time doodling in the notebook if you can get away with it.

That said, I don’t mind at all how fast time is flying by! It sure beats going to school.

What I admit I don’t like is hearing about around this season is other people’s vacations; it makes me want to retire. My last real vacation was 8 or 9 years ago to Disney World. But these days it seems like a pain to go on vacation. You have to secure time off work, do all this packing, take a long trip, and sleep on a dirty hotel bed (they don’t wash the mattresses), and the fellow vacationers might be annoying to share a hotel room with. And you have to spend a bunch of money. And then there’s the trouble of a vacation coming to an end. I think it’d be better to retire first, and then go on vacation . . . and never come back. Or have a job that requires travel so you don’t have to pay for it.

Anyway, I’m still spending my free time composing music for my album (or watching Hulu). I have around 6 pieces started, not sure which one I’ll finish first, but whichever one it is will be Opus 50.  Bwahahaha! (I’m really already over 50 pieces if you count all my work, but I’m only counting the ones I have listed on my MP3s page, and the three I’ve already finished for my album). So far the plan of having the album complete in two or three months is looking good! Hope you don’t mind my constant blathering about it, I’m really not up to much else. I’d probably get a bit more done if I didn’t sleep in at every opportunity though. My body still naturally wants to stay up all night and sleep until 1 PM.

By S P Hannifin, ago

Why e-books stink

Technology opinion

I keep hearing mention of the kindle and other e-readers, and I see them at book stores on display. They do look nice, definitely better than reading from a computer screen. They’re small and look easier to carry around. They look pretty darn convenient; I’d like to have one. Unfortunately, they stink.

The main reason I think they stink is because, to read a book, I would be paying for a digital file. So . . . what if I don’t like the book? Can I return it? How much control do the e-reader makers have over my collection of digital files? Can I copy them to a new e-reader if I get one from a different manufacturer? Can I copy them to my computer and copy and paste text I like? I can re-sell my old books, but what about some old digital book file I don’t care about anymore? I wouldn’t be able to get a penny for it, would I?

I currently have a part time job at the local library, and I’d say about 66 to 75 percent of the books I read are from the library. Because they’re free. If I really like a book and want to keep it, I’ll buy it, but I’m very hesitant to pay money for a book from an author I’m unfamiliar with. I use the library to “demo” books. And, as long as no one else has the book on hold, I can demo it for however long I want. Unless a similar structure could be set up for e-books, where I can freely “check-out” books for an unlimited amount of time, I won’t be buying an e-reader anytime soon. The costly monetary disadvantages outweigh the spacial ergonomic advantages.

Also, another thing I would love to have with an e-reader is the ability to underline or highlight text, and then view the writing with or without the highlighting. When reading traditional books, I always have the urge to highlight certain sentences. But I don’t highlight, either because the book is from the library, or because I simply don’t want to create distractions for my future self if and when I ever go back and look into the book again. The ability to view my books with or without my own highlighting would be a major selling point. (But I’d still want the ability to have complete control over my files, no DRM crap.)

My first album news

In other news, I finished composing my third piece for my album, and I’m calling it The Dragon King (Opus 49) … bum bum bum! But, like Dragon of the Mist, it doesn’t sound threatening; it’s not an evil dragon. (I also subtly slipped in the melody from Dragon of the Mist for a couple measures, bwahahaha!) So, about 16 minutes of music is now finished for my album (White Castle Waltz, On the Edge of a Dream, and The Dragon King). I’ve got quite a few other pieces started that I’m still working on (one is over 12 minutes long and will most likely become the longest piece I’ve ever written). I’m hoping to have the album out by mid-August. Right now I’m focusing all my creative energy on it.

By S P Hannifin, ago

Whining about composing woes

It’s been quite a busy week.  I don’t have a full-time job yet, but I have a part time job at our local library, and I’ve had to work pretty much every day this week.  Plus we have company in the house, some family members in for a visit, which is nice!  But it does make the non-working hours busier than usual.  (And I’m trying to be quieter at night, instead of popping popcorn and watching TV at 2 AM as I often do.)

I’m finally working on some new music, which is of course really fun.  Not sure what I’ll call the piece yet, but I’ll think of something.  It’s about 3 minutes so far.  I hope to put it on my album.  The weather has been really hot here (in the 90s), and my parents don’t use the air conditioning enough in my opinion, and I have found it’s hard to compose when I feel too hot.  Quite annoying.  So I turn my desk fan on, but it’s noisy, so I can’t orchestrate things quite right unless I turn it off, and then I get too hot again.  Isn’t that just terrible?!  Also, I need new headphones.  I have some nice Sennheiser wireless headphones, which are awesome for just about everything, except composing.  The bass is too loud with them, and when your computer plays really loud or soft sounds, it automatically lowers or raises their volume.  I think that’s great for movies and games; there’s nothing I hate worse than a loud noise suddenly piercing the ears (and most of the time you don’t even notice it).  But it’s not good at all for orchestrating.  It also almost sounds like they add a tiny small amount of reverb to everything, which is also annoying.  Lastly, they’re wireless, so they’re never really completely noise free, which, again, is really only a problem when composing.  So I need even better, more expensive headphones for composing.  (The reason I love the wireless headphones so much though is that normally I always break headphones by messing up their wires.  I roll the chair over them, yank them, twist them, tangle them… for most purposes, the wireless headphones are the best solution.)

Haven’t been up to much else lately.  I still won’t have much free time this week either.  Boo-hoo.

By S P Hannifin, ago

I’ll pay you to whistle

I’m not really desperate for more melodies to compose with; I’ve got plenty of them (although I haven’t updated my site FreeDailyMelody in while, mostly because it does take time to properly format the melodies, but I do want to get back to updating that site sometime, but who knows if I ever will… I want to write a novel someday too).

Anyway, for my The Worlds Inside project I’m allowing submissions from composers with completed works.  But then I thought… hmmm… what if “non-composers” could get in on the act too?  If someone could whistle or hum an original melody, wouldn’t it be fun to hear what it sounded like orchestrated and developed into a full piece?  So The Worlds Inside will now also accept submissions of just plain old whistling and humming (details here).

I’m working on a little demo to show off what simple whistled melodies can be made into… it’s quite fun.

By S P Hannifin, ago

A magazine of music albums

Hope you had a good Easter!  I had a nice Easter here, complete with too much candy eaten at once.  Yum.

When I was in college, I submitted a few short stories to a magazine and I thought: “Gee, it sure would be nice if I had somewhere to send my music for editors to buy … but, alas, there are no music magazines like there are literature magazines.”

Now that I’m out of college and I have the time, I’m going to pursue this.  It’s not quite ready for “prime time” yet, but if you’re a fan of my music and/or a composer yourself, I’d love to know if this looks at all interesting:

http://www.wizardwalk.com/theworldsinside/

The concept of The Worlds Inside is to create a series of music albums that are treated like a magazine; a series that listeners subscribe to and receive a constant flow of new and outstanding music on physical CD albums.  The Worlds Inside allows listeners to easily discover the works of new talented composers by featuring multiple fresh composers on each album.

The The Worlds Inside also gives composers an opportunity to sell their music.  The composer pays nothing to get their music on an album and available in online stores.  This allows a composer to do something with his work when he doesn’t have enough material to create a full album on his own and doesn’t want to wait.  Finally, because the space on each album is shared by multiple composers, the talents and audiences that each composer brings helps “advertise” the talents of others.

Lastly, The Worlds Inside encourages the creation and sharing of new inspirational cinematic music.  So often it seems organizations and institutions striving for “new” music seek more “avant-garde” works.  While we certainly have nothing against such institutions, The Worlds Inside shows that there is still much more to say with the traditional tonal palette.

I’m still working on the details of the business plans, but I’m also rubbing my hands together with excitement…

Anyway, I’m going to keep it “rabbit week” for one more week since it was just Easter.  Any suggestions on what noun next week should be?  (I just do it for stupid fun.)

By S P Hannifin, ago

Reading and writing and blah blah blah

Been a while again, eh?  I submitted my short story, Oberon’s Paradise, to yet another publisher, this time online magazine Strange Horizons.  They publish stories about once a week on their site free for anyone to read.  The story’s been rejected three times so far, but it never hurts to keep trying.  I’m also trying to get back into the habit of critiquing other people’s work through Critters, a free online writing workshop, and I’m hoping to put my newer short story, No One Was Abendsen, through the critique line.

I also finished another orchestral piece for my album which I call On the Edge of a Dream.  So far my album is up to a bit over 20 minutes, so I’m about a third of the way there.  One song that will be on the album, White Castle Waltz, is already available on iTunes and CD Baby.  I must say, it’s pretty cool seeing one’s work on iTunes, even if they’re not really a selective distributor.

I finished reading Dan Ariely’s book Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions, and I have a few quotes from it to put up on my Book Quotes blog.  It was a very good book, definitely worth a read if you’re interested in non-fiction.

I also finished reading a fantasy book by Kage Baker called The Anvil of the World.  It was a short book that came out in 2004, and I think it’s out of print now.  I wanted to read a book by Kage Baker because I had read a few of her short stories and enjoyed her style.  It was pretty light reading; the plot never got extremely thick or dark and the world never seemed very complex, but it was still engaging and believable and very humorous.  Not a bad read at all.

I’m still reading The Lord of the Rings (50th Anniversary Edition), a nice all-in-one volume I got for Christmas, but now I’m also reading T. H. White’s The Once and Future King, the book of the legend of King Arthur, which has definitely been enjoyable so far, especially since I already know how parts of the story go, and this book kind of fleshes things out.

And… I think that’s really all I have to blather about for now.  Kinda boring, eh?

By S P Hannifin, ago

A CD single

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In this blathering, I talk about my experiment of creating a CD singe with kunaki.com.

I also mention my plans to try to get this piece on iTunes and elsewhere with CD Baby.  I’m mostly experimenting with these services because I don’t have the patience to wait until I have an entire album finished before seeing what they’re like.

Finally, I mention Derek Sivers’ website, more specifically his music advice page.  There’s a lot of good information there for any maker of music.

Oh yeah, here’s the kunaki product page for the CD.

By S P Hannifin, ago